In this video, Tomoe will teach you some useful slang related to the internet, email and texting. These phrases are actually used by Japanese people in real life so they are definitely worth learning. Check out the list below to see what they mean and don’t forget to watch the video.
A: sō ieba ittakke?
B: n, nani
A: kono aida ikemen to tomodachi ni natta
B: yaru ne, sore de?
A: rain kō kan shita yo
A: By the way, did I tell you?
B: Huh? What?
A: I met (made friends with) a hot guy
B: Way to go! Then what happened?
A: We exchanged Line contact addresses.
Did you know…
イケメン ikemen – is constructed from “ike” which comes from iketeru which means cool, good looking or stylish. “Men” comes from possibly the kanji 面 men – which means face or more likely from the English word “men”.
Hey there you good-looking Learn Japanese Podders and welcome to my Street Japanese series of videos. I made these videos to teach natural Japanese as it is really spoken on the streets in Japan. Each video in the series links to the next one in order to create a long conversation so be sure to watch all the videos. You can also download PDF shownotes, an mp3 of the video and read about the grammar and culture featured in the videos.
Be sure to check back every Wednesday when we put up a new video. Enjoy!
Watch the other Street Japanese Videos 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
In this video we look at the phrase ドタキャン dotakyan which means to suddenly cancel going to a meeting. Here’s the dialog as we did it in the video. A) ヨシコ、ひどいよー B) え？なんで？どうしたの？ A) この間、ドタキャンしたじゃない？ B) あ、ごめん。これからは絶対しないから A) 本当に?!
A) yoshiko, hidoi yo B) e? nande? A) kono aida dotakyan shita ja nai? A) a, gomen. kore kara zetai shinai kara B) hontō ni?
A) You’re terrible Yoshiko
B) Eh? Why? What’s the matter?
A) The other day you cancelled on me at the last minute!
B) Ah, sorry. I’ll absolutely never do that again!
A) Really?
Now here’s a little history for you…
Dotakyan comes from 土壇場キャンセル dotanba kyanseru – Last moment cancel. Japanese love to shorten long phrases so “dotanba kyanseru” changes to dotakyan.
But, where does 土壇場 come from?
During the Edo period, executions were carried out by stretching out the guilty horizontally on a small mound of earth. Then they would be decapitated by sword. That mound of earth was a 土壇場 dotanba. 土 do is earth, 壇 tan means a mound and 場 ba means place. During the Edo period 土壇場 came to mean “the place of execution”.
In modern use, 土壇場 dotanba means at the last moment, or at 11th hour. This probably comes from the idea that an execution is the very last minute of life.
There, I bet you didn’t know that AND it’s used all the time. So, try that out on your Japanese friends to amaze and amuse them.
If you would like to know the single most useful phrase when shopping and eating out in Japan, you are in the right place.
The phrase you need to know is…drum roll…
これをください
Kore o kudasai
This means “This please” or “I’ll take this one”. This is a super useful phrase and can be used to order food and buy almost anything in shops. In fact the joke goes, every restaurant in Japan serves the dish “kore” (This).
The other thing you need to know is how to order multiple things as in “I’ll take two of these”, “I’ll take three of these” etc. Check the vocabulary list below. maaa
Japanese
Pronunciation
English
これをください
kore o kudasai
I’d like this please
これをひとつください
kore o hitotsu kudasai
I’d like 1 please
これをふたつください
kore o futatsu kudasai
I’d like 2 please
これをみつください
kore o mitsu kudasai
I’d like 3 please
これをよつください
kore o yotsu kudasai
I’d like 4 please
これをいつつください
kore o itsutsu kudasai
I’d like 5 please
One last thing to remember is that in many Japanese restaurants, you can make use of the menu which usually has pictures for the food. In this way, you can simply point and say これをください and you’ll be fine.
In this video, Tomoe teaches us two must-know Japanese phrases for when you get home. They are ”ただいま” tadaima – which means “I’m home”. The other phrase ”おかえりなさい” okaeri nasai means something like welcome back and is the answer to tadaima.
This is used everyday in households across Japan so this is a great phrase to know.
